


Good Iron for Nails

by ZombieGiraffes



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Hurt Locker (2008), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M, Slash if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieGiraffes/pseuds/ZombieGiraffes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will James is not in a good state the first time Coulson meets him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Iron for Nails

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know you guys.

Will James is not in a good state the first time Coulson meets him. Coulson is not the man to make an assessment of the man's mental state, but as he watches him shuck out of the bomb suit and climb into the Humvee fingering two small stubs of wire, he knows the man is not exactly sane.

Nobody here is, it seems, thinks Coulson as he looks to the hard, fierce, angry face of the driver, and to the drawn, pale face of the gunner.

“Having fun yet?” Asks James, winding the wires through his fingers.

Coulson looks at the wires, then down to the smear of old, dried blood on the sleeve of his uniform. He doesn't remember if it's his or someone else's.

None of them are quite right here.

**  
James punches the shit out of his friends, this Coulson learns quickly. Coulson will not allow people to hit him a second time, this James learns just as quickly.

**

“Why bombs?” Coulson asks one evening after watching James practising with firearms.

“Why not?”

Coulson sighs and turns away.

“No,” James stops him, “Really, why not? You got something else for me?”

**

James does not exactly have friends so much as people he is used to having around, this Coulson learns later, when James finishes his rotation and no-one hears from him for a month.

**

He goes back. Coulson follows.

**

“I thought you were sent out here to recruit or something,” accuses James around a bottle of beer.

Coulson folds his hands on the table, “Yes,” he agrees, calmly.

James picks off the label from the bottle, screws it into a ball and throws it into a bin clear across the room, “So why you hanging around the bomb squad? You looking to recruit bomb techs?”

He doesn't sound interested, or like he's fishing for information. Coulson just smiles the barest of smiles, “No, I'm looking to recruit you.”

**

Coulson listens to the sound of Fury glaring down the phone at him.  
“Phil, have you actually lost your mind out there?”

“No Sir,”

Coulson listens as Fury leafs through papers, James' papers.

“This guy is a liability through and through.”

“We all go a little mad sometimes,”

Fury snorts, “You better know what you're doing, Coulson.”

“Yes Sir.”

**

James looks different in civvies, he looks lost and small. It isn't a good look on him.

**

Coulson looks different in a suit. But no less dangerous. James actually laughs when he sees him.

**

“No bombs,” he says, and is surprised when James doesn't protest, “I was thinking we could revisit your appaarent skill for shooting.”

**

James doesn't want the job. He doesn't like the psych evals and the therapists Fury has pressed upon him. He scowls at Coulson as if he can make him leave every time he turns up at the door. But he's in his civvies, he can't intimidate anyone.

**

“What's that?” he says instead of glaring the next time Coulson turns up.

“Your uniform, soldier.”

James smirks, at the title, at Coulson, “I didn't take the job,”

“I'm optimistic.”

**

The ID goes down better than expected. James fingers the edges of the documents and says the name to himself over and over, trying it out, getting a good feel for it. New name, new life, new start, Coulson says.

Clint Barton shakes his head at him, “Can't change who you are, only what you do,”

“And what are you going to do, Mr. Barton?”

“Thought I might try to save the world.”


End file.
